Tag Archives: Andrew Graham and Swarming Branch

Here’s the good thing about Columbus music. While we’ll grieve the loss of Phantods, there are plenty of new bands in Columbus to lift our spirits. I’ve been digging WVWHite as of late. And, of course, there’s Connections, the new band with familiar faces we told you about in May: Kevin Elliott of 84 Nash on vocals, his brother Adam Elliott of Times New Viking on drums, Dave Capaldi of El Jesus de Magico on guitar, Andy Hampel of 84 Nash on guitar and Philip Kim of Andrew Graham & Swarming Branch on bass.

The Columbus supergroup didn’t disappoint when I caught their debut show at Kobo, and I was happy to hear the band is working on their debut full-length, Private Airplane, at Columbus Discount Recording. “Miller’s Grove,” above, is the first preview of Connections’ upcoming record. You can catch Connections Friday night at Ace of Cups. (And WVWhite Saturday at Ace of Cups.)

That flyer is for tonight’s debut show of Connections, a new Columbus band with a noteworthy lineup: Adam Elliott of Times New Viking, Kevin Elliott of 84 Nash, Dave Capaldi of El Jesus de Magico, Philip Kim of Andrew Graham & Swarming Branch and Andy Hampel of 84 Nash. Kevin Elliott posted some Connections songs on SoundCloud awhile back, but those have been taken down because, Elliott says, “They weren’t representative of what we are doing now. Until tonight, it’s somewhat a mystery as to what we sound like.”

Not content with just one debut show, Connections will play three in a row this week:

It is indeed that time of year. Well, yes, it is late December aka Christmas/New Years time. However, when most people are trimming trees, dusting off their John Denver and the Muppets Christmas albums and throwing back some egg nog, music addicts/geeks alike are perusing every “Best of 2010″ list they can find on the world wide web. That being said…

Two-thousand and ten was quite a whirlwind year for me. I became part of this brilliant music blog, had a crash course in promoting shows and met some pretty special people along the way. It’s safe to say the music released this year all served as an applicable soundtrack as it felt like new albums came out faster than I could digest them.

If you’ve read most of my posts, it’s apparent that I enjoy reporting on international acts that I feel deserve American attention (and also since the rest of the Donewaiting staff do such a stellar job of keeping up on everything).

On top of national and international releases, Columbus’s scene has also kept quite busy this year. Without further ado, here’s my 2010 list:

You can catch Graham solo tomorrow night (Saturday, 7/31) at Rumba and with his Branch on Tuesday, August 3rd, at Skully’s in Columbus opening for Cults ($5 18+). From there they’ll head out on a late-summer tour. Dates & venues on myspace.

Ex-RTFO Bandwagon mastermind Andrew Graham put out on LP on Mexican Summer (Kurt Vile, Real Estate) this year without much fanfare. I don’t know if that’s because the vinyl release kept getting pushed back or what, but if you haven’t heard it yet, you should. “Kathy” is my favorite track, all Velvety, delicious krautrock. Love the violin drones. Also of note: “Branch” is a reference to the group’s membership, in that no one is “in” the band, but several people play under the umbrella, like a bank with different branches. And each musician only plays one note at a time, no chords, like a swarm of bees. It works.

Andrew Graham & Swarming Branch will play at KOBO in Columbus on Friday (7/16) with King Louie’s Missing Monuments from New Orleans.

(That’s not the official video up there, but I thought it was at least mildly interesting. And a good preview if you’re hesitant to click “Save as.”